From Openmarket.org:

[E]arlier this week, a measure creating a federal fingerprint registry totally unrelated to national security passed a U.S. Senate committee almost without notice. The legislation would require thousands of individuals working even tangentially in the mortgage and real estate industries — and not suspected of anything — to send their prints to the feds. The database and fingerprint mandates were tucked into housing and foreclosure assistance bills that on Tuesday passed the Senate Banking Committee by a vote of 19-2.

The measure the committee passed states that “an indvidual may not engage in the business of a loan originator without first … obtaining a unique identifier.” To obtain this “identifier,” an individual is requiredto [sic] “furnish” to the newly created Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System and Registry “information concerning the applicant’s identity, including fingerprints for submission” to the FBI and other government agencies.

I would love for someone to explain to me why, in a country that purports to be a bastion of freedom, someone who is willing to lend his money to another must provide the federal government with a fingerprint.

Note: The impetus for this post is the FISA bill currently being debated in Congress, but also reflects more broadly on conservative philosophy within the modern Republican party.

I’ve found the recent bickering over whether to give retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies who cooperated with the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program to be almost surreal.  It defies reason to hear self professed conservatives actually arguing - and vehemently so - not only for the executive branch to have additional unchecked powers, but also for companies who knowingly complied with government orders to compromise their customer’s privacy to be immune from consequences.  Such logic flies in the face of traditional, limited government conservatism.  I certainly wouldn’t expect to hear the same Republicans arguing for Clinton or Obama to have this expanded power, which leaves only the conclusion that they’re sacrificing their conservative principles - assuming they ever held them dear - in order to placate a Republican president who has constantly eschewed numerous tenets of conservatism.

In this specific case, the nation’s telecoms, with the sole exception of Quest, fell into some kind of patriotic stupor and agreed to hand over information that their clients would most certainly expect to be kept confidential.  These companies most certainly have scores of highly paid lawyers who should have known this was a bad, if not flat-out illegal, idea and would have been obliged to say as much.  It’s not like Quest accidentally did the right thing.  As much as I dislike trial lawyers - and believe me, I do - the telecoms that complied with the Bush administration deserve to be open to potential litigation due to their choice.

To the broader point, I heard a great interview recently with former Rep. Mickey Edwards who was flogging his new tome, Reclaiming Conservatism.  Here’s the description that the publisher provides:

Edwards argues loud and clear that conservatives today have abandoned their principles and have become champions of that which they once most feared. The conservative movement–which once nominated Barry Goldwater for President, and later elected Ronald Reagan–was based on a distinctly American kind of conservatism which drew its inspiration directly from the United States Constitution–in particular, an overriding belief in individual liberty and limited government. But today, Edwards argues, the mantle of conservatism has been taken over by people whose beliefs and policies threaten the entire constitutional system of government. By abetting an imperial presidency, he contends, so-called “conservatives” have gutted the system of checks and balances, abandoned due process, and trampled upon our cherished civil liberties. Today’s conservatives endorse unprecedented assertions of government power–from the creation of secret prisons to illegal wiretapping. Once, they fought to protect citizens from government intrusion; today, they seem to recognize few limits on what government can do. The movement that was once the Constitution’s–and freedom’s–strongest defender is now at risk of becoming its most dangerous enemy.

Sounds like a worthwhile read. 

For some reason things like civil liberties have become anathema to many so-called conservatives for no justifiable reason.  Liberty, whether civil, economic, personal, etc., is the foundation of conservative, small government philosophy.  I’m guessing that the perception of civil liberties has been colored by their tight embrace by big government liberals.  These individuals, typically Democrats, have no problem with the government intruding into nearly every facet of people’s lives until it comes to civil liberty issues.  Then they get all lathered up.  This frequently smacks of them fighting solely to protect hedonistic, immoral, or outright criminal endeavors.  Consequently in our increasingly politically polarized society conservatives, who typically align with Republicans, all too often choose to mock these hippie socialists and unfortunately the very conservative notion of civil liberty is collateral damage.  That is a shame.

Current Republicans have, in their zeal to solidify the power of the party, conferred increased power to this president and have dutifully supported proposals that should make them blush with shame.  It is not coincidental that their attempts to increase power by means of sacrificing principles have backfired and left the party in distress.

From the Wall Street Journal: Dancing Spychief Wants to Tap Into Cyberspace

The content of the article is quite disturbing, to say the least.

At issue, McConnell acknowledges, is that in order to accomplish his plan, the government must have the ability to read all the information crossing the Internet in the United States in order to protect it from abuse. Congressional aides tell The Journal that they, too, are also anticipating a fight over civil liberties that will rival the battles over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Oh no, the FISA battles will seem like a fond dream compared to this fight.

The dancing part?  You have to wait until the end of the article.

McConnell, a South Carolina native, also reveals that he fancies himself a fabulous dancer.

Well, isn’t that special?!

… or at least what little of it you still have left.

A top intelligence official says it is time people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguards people’s private communications and financial information.

I don’t disagree with the notion that radical Muslims and other such rabble pose a threat to the U.S.  What I have a problem with is the magnitude of the threat that is being proferred by those who see to rescind Constitutional protections that have kept this country free (and relatively safe) for over 200 years.  The threat shouldn’t be ignored, but also shouldn’t be over hyped.

According to this site there were just under 3,000 victims of the 9/11 attacks.  More people than that die of drowning every year.  Sacrificing liberties that many fought and died for out of fear of something that is almost a statistical aberration hardly seems prudent.

Jack Shafer at Slate discusses how the government is using our children as a smokescreen for censoring the media we choose to consume.

I mentioned this story a few days ago, but DHS Secretary Chertoff has an op-ed in today’s Washington Post pleading for us to allow the government to have extensive access to our travel plans.  I’ve got to say, after giving this plan some thought I don’t like it one bit.  Theoretically if the government had access to all of our personal data we would be safer.  I say “theoretically” because the government would find a way to both legitimately screw it up and use it for corrupt purposes.

We do not profile based on race or ethnicity, but we do assess potential threats through careful analysis of individual behavior.

While racial or ethnic profiling would be unsavory it would at least be somewhat effective - temporarily.  Government security measures are inherently reactive and the terrorists would just adapt to game the new rules.

Protecting personal privacy is a part of responding to the post-Sept. 11 world, but it should not reflexively block us from developing new screening tools. Indeed, more data sharing leads to more precisely targeted screening, which actually improves privacy by reducing questioning and searches of innocent travelers.

Translation: I have to say that crap about privacy concerns.  If you rubes would just give us your travel plans every morning we could keep you save throughout the day.

Read the column.  Ideally I am his target audience.  I’m a law abiding, terrorist hating conservative.  But I just can’t sit idly by while the government attempts to invade our private lives more and more.

From the NY Times.

A proposal by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff would allow the United States government not only to look for known terrorists on watch lists, but also to search broadly through the passenger itinerary data to identify people who may be linked to terrorists, he said in a recent interview.

Similarly, European leaders are considering seeking access to this same database, which contains not only names and addresses of travelers, but often their credit card information, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers and related hotel or car reservations.

Stories like this tug me in both directions.  I understand the need to protect our country.  I am not a criminal or terrorist, so what do I care if the government closely inspects me.  But, as I read story after story about how government is intruding more and more into our personal information and lives I start to feel like this is the plot for a movie.  I’m waiting for Chertoff or Bush to just walk out and say, “If all of you will let the government mount cameras in every room of your house we can beat the Islamic fascist terrorists!”

Any estimates on how long before some government official uses this capability for something other than tracking terrorists?